How to update item costs in QuickBooks Online

Published 6 October 2026. Updated 6 October 2026.

A supplier sends a new price list. Your QuickBooks Online items still carry last quarter's purchase costs. Until the two agree, every margin report, every quote and every below-cost check is working from stale numbers. This guide walks through a clean way to update costs for a small distributor, using the import QuickBooks Online already has.

It assumes you track items in the Products and services list with a purchase cost and a sales price on each one. If you keep costs somewhere else, the method still applies, but the screens will differ.

Before you start: know what you are changing

Each item has two numbers that look alike and mean different things.

• Purchase cost is what you pay the supplier. This is what the price list changes.
• Sales price is what you charge your customer. This is your decision, not the supplier's.

The safest update touches the purchase cost and nothing else. Keep that rule in mind through every step below.

Step 1: Export your current item list

Before you change anything, export the Products and services list from QuickBooks Online to a spreadsheet. You need it twice: as the reference to match the supplier's list against, and as your backup.

Save a dated copy somewhere you will not overwrite it. An import cannot be undone with a button, so the backup is your way back.

Step 2: Get the supplier list into one flat table

Supplier price lists arrive as Excel files, CSV files, Word tables, PDFs and sometimes photos of a printed page. Whatever the format, you want one flat table with one line per item and these columns at minimum:

1. The supplier's item number or SKU
2. A description
3. The new cost
4. The unit the cost applies to (each, box of 10, per 100 feet)

Watch for the layouts that cause trouble: costs spread across several quantity-break columns, a header repeated on every page, merged cells, notes written into the price column ("call"), and sheets that mix several product families with different columns.

Count the item lines in the source and in your flat table. If the numbers differ, find out why before going further.

Step 3: Match their items to yours

Your item names are rarely the supplier's item numbers. Match in this order, from safest to riskiest:

1. Exact match on the SKU or item name.
2. Normalised match, ignoring case, spaces, dashes and leading zeros.
3. Alias match using a mapping you keep of "their number is our number".
4. Close match by description, only when one candidate is clearly better than the rest.

Anything that does not match by one of these is held back for you to decide. Never let a guess flow through into an import. The guide on how to match supplier SKUs to your items goes into the details of this step.

Step 4: Compute the change

For each matched item, compare the new cost with the current purchase cost and work out two figures:

• The change in currency: new cost minus current cost.
• The change as a percentage of the current cost.

Do this with formulas, not by eye. Check the unit as well: a cost that "rose 900%" is far more likely a switch from a price per each to a price per box of 10 than a real increase.

Sort by the percentage change, largest first. The big movers deserve a second look against the source document.

Step 5: Check the sell side

With new costs in hand, compare each to the current sales price. Flag any item where the sales price is now below the cost, and any item where the margin has shrunk further than you accept. A short list of below-cost items, shown first, is often the most useful result of the whole exercise. The supplier price increase checklist covers this check in more detail.

Step 6: Prepare the import file

QuickBooks Online has its own import for products and services, reached from its settings, which takes a spreadsheet or CSV file. Follow the column names and format the import screen asks for, and use the sample file it offers as a template. To change items you already have, you have to tell the import to overwrite the details of existing items. Intuit's help article on importing products and services describes the current screens, including a limit of 1,000 rows per import.

Some rules that keep the import safe:

• Include only rows you have checked. Leave out unmatched items, new items and anything you are unsure about.
• Include the column for purchase cost, and keep the sales price column holding the exact value each item already has. Do not leave it blank unless a test row has shown you what a blank does.
• Do not change names or SKUs in the same import. If a name changes, QuickBooks may treat the row as a new item.
• Try one or two rows first. Import, open the items, and confirm only the cost changed.

QuickBooks changes its import screens from time to time, so check what it does with existing items on a small test before the full file.

Step 7: Import, then spot check

Run the import. Then open a sample of items, including a few of the biggest movers and a few unchanged ones, and compare what you see to your prepared file. Check that sales prices did not move.

Keep the supplier's original file, your flat table, the import file and the backup together in one folder named for the supplier and the date.

Step 8: Deal with the leftovers

Three groups never make it into the import and need a decision.

• Unmatched lines. Items on the supplier's list that you cannot find in yours. Some are new products, some are renamed.
• Dropped items. Items in QuickBooks that the supplier's new list no longer shows. They may be discontinued, or just left off. Ask before you mark anything inactive.
• Questionable rows. Costs that are blank, say "call", or look wrong against the unit.

A quick pre-import checklist

• Backup exported and saved
• Line count of the source equals line count of the table
• Every cost unit confirmed
• Changes computed by formula
• Below-cost items listed
• Only checked rows in the import file
• Sales price column untouched
• One-row test import done

Where PriceListRadar fits

PriceListRadar does the reading, matching and computing in steps 2 to 6; your margin targets stay yours. You upload the supplier's price list (Excel, CSV, Word, PDF or a scan) and your QuickBooks item list. Software reads the table and matches rows to your items by exact SKU, then normalised SKU and known aliases, then a look-alike match only when one item is a clear winner. Code computes every change and percentage and flags items now below cost. Rows it cannot match come back to you as questions.

A second, stronger AI model reviews every result, fixes what it can, and lists what is left for you to decide. Results are model output checked by code and by a second model; they are not verified by a person.

You get a change list with below-cost items first, a file for QuickBooks Online's Import products and services made only of checked rows that replaces Purchase Cost and never Sales Price, and a backup of the current values of the affected items. It does not push anything into QuickBooks for you, and it does not tell you what to charge. An update of up to 100 price lines costs 12 credits, and longer files add 12 credits per further 100 lines. You can sign up and try it on your next price list.

Questions

Should I change my sales prices when costs go up?

That is a separate decision. Update the purchase cost first so your records are right, then review margins and decide on sales prices item by item. Mixing the two in one import is how prices change by accident.

How often should I update costs?

Whenever a supplier sends a new list. Some suppliers reissue their lists on a regular cycle, such as once a year, while others send an increase notice whenever their own costs move. Treat each list or notice as its own update.

What if the supplier only sent a PDF?

You still need the figures in a spreadsheet before an import. Copy the table out, or have it read for you, and then check the row count against the PDF so no lines are lost on the way.